Mock tests are viewed as trial runs and so, the method of cracking examinations, particularly when it is a highly competitive one, like CAT, includes the students’ capability to extract the maximum from these tests. When students attempt these tests, they end up boosting their confidence level.

The intention of the mock test is making candidates familiar with the pattern of the test and they are also made concerning the strategies that they need to follow to handle the actual test. So, it can be said that mocks are the highly valuable tools that students will have right at their disposal for honing and fine-tuning their performance.

Forming the ideal strategy

Students are highly required to have sufficient capability and preparation strategy for clearing these tests and these traits are more important compared to learning formulae and concepts. Commonly, the mocks are meant for working as a benchmarking tool and they aid students in measuring their levels of preparation for CAT.

Additionally, these tests also turn helpful to students for discovering their weaknesses and strength and also to develop the ideal test-taking approach via analysis of a student’s performance properly.

Learning fresh methods

The model tests tend to help students in learning progressive methods. At times, students might discover useful and new methods to apply the basic concepts, and they are highly required to treat every mock as the actual CAT.

Students have to be pretty serious when they hope to perform well in their practice papers or extract real benefits from them. Again, they must observe these tests not only as a mock test alone but also as a chance to learn as well as augment their performance. So, every student must put his best efforts but never become over-confident.

Practice and performance

In the previous few years, CAT laid stress on the types of problems that students can solve when they possess a sturdy conceptual understanding in place of depending and resorting to only speed and short-cuts.

So, when the preparation of the students has not reached up to the mark then they must plan for an entire round of preparation right from the basics immediately before applying these concepts in the subsequent mocks. They must review the earlier mocks.

After-performance analysis

When students have given a mock test, they must devote nearly 2 hours in analyzing every section of their paper and they must first attempt to work out all the questions in various ways that they can think of. Additionally, it is also important for them to hunt for solutions as well. In this period of their preparation, they must attempt to understand the basics well and more importantly, their capability for applying their knowledge in the scenario of the test.

However, students can accomplish this analysis in various steps like the following:

• Step one – Students should attempt those questions that they did not attempt at the time of mock and they should spend only one and ½ minutes to every question.
• Step two – Students must try to solve even those questions that are left. Only when students try all the questions and go through the answer key for finding out the questions that they answered correctly besides re-attempting those questions that they couldn’t answer, they would be capable of learning from their experience. Only this way, they would be able to push themselves for thinking harder and also find out the mistakes they have made.
• Step three – A test taker must observe the solutions and make a comparison of their approach. Additionally, they must see and learn from various approaches. They must attempt to categorize the questions according to the levels of difficulty grounded on their understanding. Students must also give the time they need for solving each question in an examination situation.
• Step four – A student must devote his time to analyze the sectional as well as percentiles and overall scores. Additionally, they must trail the parameters of their key performance continuously and also hunt for the trends which might be adverse. Students must always keep this in mind that their absolute scores don’t necessarily imitate their performance in a competitive examination and so, here the relative performance matters, and when it is CAT, then students’ percentile matters a lot.

Students need to keep trail of the method in which they cross every sectional cut-off and also the number of times when they have successfully made it into the list of toppers. They also have to notice how many times they have become successful in crossing a specific overall number that they had aimed for.

So, it can be concluded that students must look for ways to augment their percentiles in every mock while being mindful that they can’t avoid the ups and downs as they always accompany people’s lives.

Stay connected with fellow students on PaGaLGuY for CAT Exam 2020 Discussion

Source: The Hindustan Business Line